Road to Disaster
by Silver Sniper
Summary: Kuroyanagi Ryou, 22, has been faced with the most horrifying thing in his life: Kanmuri Shigeru's driving.


Yakitate! Japan © …someone… just not me!

A/N: I'm not sure how old you have to be to legally drive in Japan, but let's assume it's sixteen like it is in The U.S. That and Kanmuri will probably be a little out of character in this piece.

* * *

"Sempai, can you do me a favor?"

It all started with those seven words, one comma, and one question mark. Those were the words that had spelled the doom and near death of Kuroyanagi Ryou. Of course, if the twenty-two year old Pantasia judge knew what was in stored for him that very day, he might have possibly avoided his near clash with fate. However, no matter how good of a reaction he can perform when sampling delectable bread, and no matter how intelligent the man is, fortune telling was not one of the skills he possess, unfortunately.

"You called me all this way to ask me a favor, Shigeru?" Kuroyanagi sighed as Kanmuri smiled knowingly. "You could have called, you know."

"But sempai, I wanted you do this with me no matter what, so it's just so much easier if you're here," Kanmuri told him. Kuroyanagi's mind began sending out 'danger' signals at an alarming rate.

"Shigeru…" he said suspiciously.

"Please sempai, just say yes!" Kanmuri begged as he clung to the hem of Kuroyanagi's shirt, much to his dismay. "Please!"

Kuroyanagi could've said no, he _should've _said no, but those pleading eyes on the verge of tears… Oh how he hated them! But they were too much to bear, so Kuroyanagi found himself reluctantly saying:

"…Fine."

Those four little letters were four little letters the man would forevermore regret saying. This was one joyride that he would never forget, and one trip that would mentally scar him forever. Scared yet?

* * *

"Are you ready, sempai?" Kanmuri asked as Kuroyanagi numbly slid into the passenger seat. Without so much as waiting for an answer, Kanmuri slammed on the reverse, literally smashing, tail first, into the St. Pierre main store.

"Sh-Shigeru!" Kuroyanagi exclaimed as he quickly reached for the seatbelt. Kanmuri simply smiled; completely unfazed that he had nearly run over eight people and completely shattering St. Pierre's entrance. Shifting the gear to drive, Kanmuri _stomped_ on the gas pedal, sending him, a shocked white Kuroyanagi, and the car down lurching down the street. (Not before knocking down half a dozen garbage cans and nearly making an innocent tabby cat road kill of course.)

"Too fast, too fast, too fast!" Kuroyanagi yelled as he saw various people of all ages screaming for their lives as they nearly avoided being crushed. It was an absolute miracle that no one had died or even got hurt, especially when Kanmuri was going at… one hundred and fourteen miles per hour! And accelerating no less! Kuroyanagi nearly fainted after seeing those numbers. It was NOT normal for people to be driving that fast!

"Huh?" Kanmuri blinked obliviously as he made a sudden cutthroat right, scraping the side of the car on a concrete building, sending red sparks flying everywhere before hurdling down the street once again.

"Shigeru! Slow down!" Kuroyanagi half screeched, half whimpered. Kanmuri didn't pay any heed as they sharply veered left in order to avoid sending an elderly citizen to heaven before his time.

"What was that, sempai?" Kanmuri laughed. Kuroyanagi was about to answer when the pink-haired teen decided it was a good time to start fiddling with the various buttons and switches the car provided. Among the pushing and flicking, Kanmuri somehow managed to make the windshield wipers whip around like crazy, turn on the heater at full blast despite it being the middle of summer, make the door locks lock and unlock themselves a couple of times, honk the horn for a while like a madman, and open the windows to as low as they could go, effectively drowning out Kuroyanagi's cries for help.

"SHIGERU!" Kuroyanagi wailed, trying to make his voice audible over the loud and awful din as Kanmuri made another sharp turn right onto a road Kuroyanagi knew oh so well. It was the one-way road that led to…

"Wah! Sempai! Look! It says the bridge is closed due to part of it falling into the lake!" Kanmuri pointed out as they whizzed by the sign. Construction workers all dropped whatever they were doing as they ran for their dear lives once they realized that there was no stopping the car. Kuroyanagi mumbled a quick prayer to a god he probably didn't even believe in before screaming as loud as he possibly and would ever do:

"BREAK SHIGERU! BREAK!" And after that, Kuroyanagi held on for dear life. "STOP!"

"Hold on, sempai!" Kanmuri instructed as he pushed even harder on the gas pedal until the car couldn't possibly go any faster. How the boy was remaining so calm was _way_ beyond his knowing. "We're going to jump the gap!"

"WHAT!" Kuroyanagi shrieked as he shot his kouhai a panicked look. "SHIGERU! THAT'S SUICIDE! WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU THINKING! WHERE HAS YOUR HARVARD GRADUATED BRAIN GONE!"

"But sempai told me to think beyond common sense," Kanmuri pouted as he leaned forward on the wheel. Kuroyanagi paled, wishing he had never, ever, _ever_ said those words. Scratch that, he wished he had never, ever, _ever_ met this boy. "So instead of stopping like a normal person would before it's too late, I decided to make sempai proud by thinking out of the mind of common people and jump it!"

"SHIGERU! NOOOOOO!" Kuroyanagi hollered. Right, think outside of the mind of common people and straight into one of a lunatic! God, he was too young to die! His kouhai was too young to die! (Oh well, at least he'd get to see his bunny friend again, right?)

"Here we go!" Kanmuri exclaimed, nearing the gap at top speed as Kuroyanagi started screaming his lungs off. One moment they were on solid ground, and the next, they were hurling in the air, who knows how many feet above the river (which Kuroyanagi would eventually nickname The River of DOOM!). Up and up they went, forward and forward they leaned, louder and louder Kuroyanagi screamed, and harder and harder Kanmuri concentrated on landing them safely. Then with a loud thud and a horrid shriek, they had hit solid ground once more, (it's fiction, remember?) but due to the fact that Kanmuri still had his foot firmly planted against the gas pedal, the two received a rather nasty whiplash before shooting down the street, crushing the sign that had said 'Bridge Close' before Kanmuri decided to turn another right.

"Sh-shig-g-ger-ru…" Kuroyanagi stuttered once he realized that they weren't dead. The teen simply smiled as if it were nothing and that one false move might have had them ascending towards heaven. In fact, he smiled as if he had been doing this every single day!

"Wow! We almost didn't make it, sempai," Kanmuri laughed. "In fact, I was pretty sure we wouldn't make it halfway through, but we're pretty lucky, aren't we?"

Kuroyanagi was about to answer, but found a lost of voice as Kanmuri suddenly sent them tumbling off the road into a dense forest after having to make a change of course, seeing they nearly smashed head first into an unsuspecting pregnant woman, who seemed to have fainted due to shock of nearly being ran over. Kuroyanagi screamed again as the car was sent over a series of bumps and tumbling over cut down tree trunks, and all the while, leaves and other plants were hurled at the windshield, making it absolutely impossible for Kanmuri or Kuroyanagi to see where they were going.

"SHIGERU!" he choked as they shot out of the forest and onto the road again. Kanmuri swerved left, sending a flock of birds flapping their wings for their precious life as they neared a cliff (still fiction, remember?). Wait, they weren't nearing! They were going to be sent flying off of it screaming bloody murder any second now!

"Wah! I think I'm going a bit too fast, sempai," Kanmuri commented out of the blue as the edge of the cliff came nearer and nearer.

"YOU THINK!" Kuroyanagi sobbed, wishing it would all stop. It was terrible I tell you, absolutely terrible! In fact, Kuroyanagi might've just sprouted white hair right then due to frustration, aggravation, but above all, fear. Fear of death, fear of total demolition, and of course, fear that if they somehow survived this, Kanmuri would turn from intelligent scientist to crazy maniac. (All sempais should care for their precious kouhais of course!)

"Oh, sempai, I don't think we're going to make it…" Kanmuri admitted sadly as he frowned and cast Kuroyanagi a grim look.

"SHIGERU!" Kuroyanagi cried, not even bothering to tell the teen that it had been the case for the past ten minutes. Kanmuri simply sighed as he kept his foot on the gas pedal, still not taking note of the break just left of it. Kuroyanagi closed his eyes. This was it. These were the last moments of his-

Then suddenly, the car came to a screeching stop, sending the two hurling forward in their seats despite them both having seatbelts on. Kuroyanagi thought for a second or two that they were already dead, that is until he realized he was still firmly strapped to his seat, the car inches away from the edge of the cliff.

"Aww… we ran out of gas," Kanmuri sighed as he unbuckled himself and hopped out of the battered car. Really, the thing had seen _much_ better days. "I knew we wouldn't be able to make it…"

"…Ran out of… gas…" Kuroyanagi repeated slowly. The words finally sunk in. "…THANK YOU GOD!"

"Hey! Sempai! I found emergency fuel in the back!"

And Kuroyanagi fainted.

* * *

"Sempai! Sempai! Sempai, wake up!"

Kuroyanagi's eyes fluttered open as he stared straight into a smiling face that he knew oh so well. Quickly, he scanned the area and was more than grateful to see that it was not one of a car, but rather the one of the outside of a bakery.

"Sh-Shigeru," he began as he pushed himself to an upright position. "Wh-what happened?"

"Oh, sempai somehow fainted in the car, so I just added more fuel and then drove us both safely back to the Southern Tokyo Branch," Kanmuri replied happily. Kuroyanagi twitched.

"S-Safely?" he laughed nervously as his eyes found the street in complete chaos: fire hydrants spurting water like crazy, trash from overturned garbage cans littering the floor, people frozen in place by shock and fear, and tire marks and scrapes on just about everything on the street. Right…safely…

"Shigeru, what happened to my car?" Yes, it was Kuroyanagi's car they had been driving. You have to pity the guy, don't you? I mean…

"Oh, that's right," Kanmuri exclaimed as he suddenly remembered a very important detail. "Sempai's car was in really bad shape when we got back. Well, actually, it kind of blew up five minutes after I hauled you out. It's over there though. I'm sure you'll be able to find someone to fix it for you, sempai."

"B-blew up…!" Kuroyanagi said in a shaky voice as his gaze followed Kanmuri's finger onto an object. A blackened, beaten, burnt, and battered object. After all, it really couldn't be called a car anymore, not after all that's left was a hunk of metal. Absolute wonder why nothing was on fire. "Shigeru…!"

"Well, I'm sure sempai doesn't really mind that much!" Kanmuri smiled. "So, are we on for next Friday then? I'm sure sempai will get a new car or somehow get that one fixed."

And once again, Kuroyanagi Ryou, twenty-two, judge for Pantasia, Harvard graduate, fainted.


End file.
